Would Kevin Durant Even Make the Warriors a Better Team?

You'd be hard pressed to find someone who thinks the Golden State Warriors are missing anything as a team. They are the defending champions. They're 44-4 this season. They are routinely blowing out the only teams with a chance of matching up with them—the Spurs and the Cavaliers—by 30 points. They lead the league in points and assists per game, they defend at an elite level, and they have a stretch four who posts triple-doubles like it's breakfast. Oh, and they have Steph Curry.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

And yet, the rumor of the day is that they're gunning for Kevin Durant in free agency this summer.

Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski reports the Warriors front office might be angling to bring the winner of four scoring titles and an MVP trophy to the Bay Area, and that they have the means to do it. (That includes the cap space, if they're willing to deal some key contributors like Harrison Barnes and Andre Iguodala.) A starting lineup of Curry-Klay Thompson-Durant-Draymond Green-Anyone at Center? It looks like a fantasy team, the kind of thing a kid might put together in an NBA 2K career mode. So should we put up next season's banner at Oracle Arena right now?

Most Popular

To start with, the Warriors already have two high-volume shooters in Curry and Thompson. Curry takes over 19 shots a game this season, and Thompson takes over 16. Durant is currently putting up more than 18 for the Thunder. Should Durant arrive in Oakland, they'd all see a drop in their shooting touches, and so would every Golden State rotation player. The team has thrived on sharing the ball, and, to a certain extent, the scoring burden over the last two seasons. As Green told me in an interview in December:

"You know going into a game that you're going to touch the ball, because our whole offense is based on ball movement. Obviously we know Steph is going to take more shots, and Klay is going to take more shots. But on any given night someone else may carry us."

Does Durant's arrival change that? It's hard to say. But it speaks to another issue as well: the delicate nature of a team dynamic. The Warriors clearly have a good thing going, where everyone from Curry on down to the Marreese Speights' of the world seem to be pulling in the same direction. There is a potent mix of individual sacrifice and crunch-time accountability that is earned through years of playing together. It's very difficult for even the best coaching staffs and front offices—which the Warriors have—to predict what effect adding or subtracting personnel will have on the locker room.

All that said, Durant is an elite-level player and a once-in-a-generation scoring talent. (Wait, no, so is Curry.) There's also never been a question about his character or his devotion to the team ethic at the Thunder. Since the Warriors do have the cap flexibility, they'd be foolish not to at least consider going after him. They're not the only ones, though: New York, Miami, Houston, the Clippers, and his hometown Washington Wizards are all rumored to be looking for ways to lure Durant away from Oklahoma City.

For now, Wojnarowski reports Durant "isn't close to gone in Oklahoma City—no decision, no leaning, sources said." A lot will depend on the future of teammate Russell Westbrook, and how their Thunder team—currently third in the Western Conference with a 37-13 record—do between now and that all-important summer.